I Thought the Rebbe Would Tell Me That Children Are a Blessing

Mrs. Chana Gurary lives in Montreal, where she raised her twelve children. In 1978, she had an instrumental role in building a new mikveh in the city, and went on to actively promote the mitzvah of Family Purity for nearly forty years afterwards. She was interviewed in January 2011.

I had an audience with the Rebbe in 1970 that changed my life.

A few years earlier, in 1964, I got married to my husband, Rabbi Itche Maier Gurary. We moved to Montreal, but not long after, while I was expecting our second child, I experienced some personal challenges that began to pull me down. When I spoke with the Rebbe during this period, he advised me to start teaching, part-time, at the local Bais Rivkah girls’ high school. Seeing my students learn and get good marks, the Rebbe said, would give me a certain sense of uplift, in addition to the benefit of earning a few dollars on the side.

I had actually never thought of teaching before. I was brought up in an age where the husband earned the money, and the wife took care of the children. But I followed the Rebbe’s advice and started teaching for two days a week, and I found that it did help me. Before then, I was quite shy and unconfident, which contributed to my personal challenges. However, once I started teaching, I found that I became more self-assured, more independent, and better able to stand up for myself. It is interesting how, if you have a problem in one part of your life, gaining satisfaction and self-confidence in another area can have a spillover effect.

This went on for a couple of years, but eventually, as our family continued to grow, thank G-d, I wasn’t able to keep working and I had to stop for a while. At one point, the Rebbe encouraged my husband to hire someone to help around our house. “Hired help is a necessity,” the Rebbe told him. And he reassured him that for that reason we would always have enough money to afford it. “The One Above provides for the necessities, so you shouldn’t worry about not having money for it,” he explained.

From then on, this was always a priority for us: We didn’t have fancy furniture or clothes, just the basic necessities, but the Rebbe told us to spend money on this, and so we did.

It was actually a point that the Rebbe returned to a couple more times. After another difficult period, my father-in-law, Rabbi Zalman Gurary, had the idea to send me on a two-week vacation to Florida, so that I could rest. But when this was mentioned to the Rebbe, he thought that it wouldn’t work: I’d probably spend those two weeks in Florida worrying about everything I had to do at home, and won’t even be able to rest.

Instead of the vacation, the Rebbe suggested hiring help at home for an extra day. And so from then on, a housekeeper began coming over to work at our house for two days a week.

By 1970, I was feeling overwhelmed again. I was expecting my fifth child, with the oldest being only four-and-a-half years old, and I wasn’t coping well.

This was in the winter, around the time of my husband’s birthday, and he was planning to travel to New York to have a private audience with the Rebbe for the occasion. My sister-in-law in New York had also just had her fifth child, and my husband was going to attend the brit ceremony as well. “Come along with me,” he urged. We would go to the Rebbe together so that he could give me some advice.

“What’s the Rebbe going to tell me?” I demurred. I assumed that he would say something about children being a blessing, and I didn’t think that I was in a lofty enough spiritual state for those words to have an impact. Still, my husband insisted that I come and, finally, I agreed.

A snowstorm started that Friday and continued for the next three days, but we managed to get a flight out of Montreal on Sunday. We left our three older children with my cousin and went to New York.

That evening, we walked into the Rebbe’s room for our audience. We handed the Rebbe a note explaining our situation, and this is what he told me:

“Your business is raising your children,” he told me, explaining that my cleaning lady is there to help me do my job. If I would let her do what she is there for, then I could have the peace of mind to do what I am here for.

“If you are hiring help one day a week,” the Rebbe continued, “then from now you should get two days a week. If you already get two days a week, then now you should begin to get three days a week. And you shouldn’t follow after her, checking the corners to see whether she did a good job!”

There were some blessings, and maybe a few other things were said, but that was the essence of our audience.

I walked out in a daze, my emotions welling up inside of me, and I burst out crying. In my wildest dreams, I had never expected the Rebbe to be so practical. Instead of talking in the heavens, he talked right down on earth.

My husband, in the meantime, had burst out laughing. “People live through an entire lifetime without ever knowing what their purpose in this world is,” he said excitedly. “And the Rebbe just told you what yours is.”

It was amazing how the Rebbe was able to understand the psychology of the people he spoke to, even that of a young, pregnant mother feeling overwhelmed, and to zero in on the thing that would make a difference in their situation.

Looking back, I also realize just how well the Rebbe knew his customers; I am exactly the type to follow the cleaning lady around to see whether she did a good job. And since then, I have hired a lot of help at home, and I still do, even though my children are all out of the house. As the Rebbe told me: If a woman wants to fulfill her spiritual mission in the world, she has to have some physical help.